Full disclosure: I haven’t eaten anything from McDonalds in well over ten years and frown upon fast food in general, so you would think that I’d be championing Super Size Me. Guy-at-large notices a plague of golden arches everywhere, the increase in obesity-related health issues, puts two and two together and faster than you can say “Michael Moore” you’ve got a snarky anti-corporate film that sticks it to the man.
I just wish that Morgan Spurlock wasn’t the one to make it though. Spurlock was the creator and host of the MTV gross-out show “I Bet You Will” where he got people to eat cockroaches and embarrass themselves for money and his crass attitude to people carries on here. Spurlock constantly elbow-jabs you with lingering shots of fat people (especially ones who are front-line McDonalds workers) and constantly points out the rise of obesity in the fly-over states. Super Size Me does have some good moments – a scene at a high-risk school that jettisoned it’s traditional school lunch program for a similarly-priced one based on low fat, organic food is particularly powerful, but the movie doesn’t veer too much from his initial conclusion of fat-junkie Americans and a fast food industry who is all too happy to be the pusher.
Surprisingly, the movie makes no mention f the the McSpotlight trial which comprehensively brought to light McDonald’s practices not just on nutrition, but on advertising, environmental effects, treatment of animals, employment practices, and effect as a global cultural force (the McSpotlight documentary is much more informative). Arguably, that would have made for a longer movie, but Spurlock could have easily have deleted the scenes of him puking, complaining, and waiting on doctors as his McDonald’s diet, which is basically just a scaled up version of one of his MTV stunts. At the very least, the movie should have included a sociologist along with it’s parade of doctors. Evil fast food isn’t the sole reason why Americans are fat, it’s the entire American lifestyle of sedentary work and home conditions, hurried eating, oversized portions, and overall lack of nutritional awareness. And sadly, that lifestyle is being exported to the rest of the world.
Ultimately, the film’s finger-wagging is just that and it’s conclusion of “living an unhealthy lifestyle is bad for you” is ridiculously obvious. Then again, Super Size Me is implicitly marketed at healthy people anyway so the point is rather moot.
And lastly, can anyone explain this? That McDonald’s campaign seems way offensive.